Jack Liebeck, Katya Apekisheva - Kreisler: Violin Music

Hyperion is delighted to welcome award-winning violinist Jack Liebeck to the label, together with his frequent collaborator, Katya Apekisheva.Liebeck presents a selection of music by �revolutionary player and the epitome of the Viennese violinist�, Fritz Kreisler. Some of Kreisler�s works have a dubious genesis. He programmed his own pieces in recitals; but in about 1905 he started passing some off as works by composers of the past, even writing a �Vivaldi� concerto. He continued this practice. In 1934 he instructed his American publisher, Carl Fischer, to list his so-called �Classical Manuscripts� as his own compositions in the 1935 catalogue; but this change was pre-empted when the New York Times critic, Olin Downes, was asked to give a lecture-recital with Yehudi Menuhin and started investigating the origins of the Praeludium and Allegro. Kreisler admitted it was his own work and his deception made front-page news worldwide. The Praeludium and Allegro (Classical Manuscript No 5, attributed to Gaetano Pugnani) is Kreisler�s finest achievement. When playing it at the Paris Opera in 1923, Kreisler saw Vincent d�Indy wag a finger at him from the front row and thought he had been found out. Afterwards d�Indy told him: �Pugnani would not have played the Allegro in that tempo.�This selection includes Kreisler�s absurdly virtuosic arrangement of �The Devil�s Trill� by Tartini: Kreisler�s edition, incorporating a realization of the figured bass as well as fingerings and phrasings, provides a fearsome cadenza involving triple- and quadruple-stopping as well as two- and three-note trills.